i have seen families who have never had -- that is worth linguistically and culturally relevant, to give them the tools to expand their knowledge on these topics but also facilitate how they can raise their own children to be fierce allies. these are some of the stories that i have humbly witnessed. i'm asking you city supervisors andmayor lee to make sure the initiative does not go away despite dcyf decision not to fund this; this work saves lives. i want to give you to -- who is one of our students and was able to partake in that school-based initiative. >> my name is rexi amaral, (sounds like) 16 years old, a current student at mission high school, and a former student in the lyric initiative at horace mend middle school.

throughout my time in this initiative i got to see the change of my school within my. before this initiative i used to think that being gay and being gender queer was a sin, a sickness, i did not want to live like this. thanks to the school-based initiative i finally accepted myself and embraced who i was. before lyric seminar, my school was a gay--- utopia. the word "faggot" was thrown around it was an unsafe space. after the school-based

initiative and after a pride seminar that we had at the school i saw a huge change in the school. i managed to come out in the middle of the assembly the whole school, and i was expecting a horrible reaction from everyone. but it was the most loving and respectful time. it was an amazing experience. if it wasn't for lyric, the school-based seminar, i don't know what would've happened to me. (applause) >> moderator: thank you roxie for representing. lorena larosa from carece. >> good morning, buenos dias.

good morning, buenos dias. thank you. my name is lorena and i work at the central -- and resource center, carece. and i am the school liaison and parent trainer. today i will talk about a program that we offer at carece, second chance tattoo removal program, the only tattoo removal program that is free in the city. this program that we offer is for use; we offer intensive case management. if they need therapy, we offer that. the tattoo removal is

court-mandated but also for our clients' safety. a lot of the tattoos pose a threat to their lives. they want to make a change in their lives. every day and daily basis we get phone calls from adult but want to get their tattoo removed, court-mandated. we don't have the capacity of the funds to help all those people that call us. i want to know what is the city's plan for re-entry. it is not just -- one more thing -- not just making them go through a process with the police. is also rehabilitation to help them to come back into society. thank you. (applause)

>> thank you. finally, from the first group we have rosa -- from district 8. >> hola, mi nombre es rosa tello, tengo 80 anos. >> my name is rosa tello, i am 80 years old, and attend the senior center. i go and eat the meal at the 30 st. senior center; there are many people like me who depend on this meal. >> (spanish) >> please remember to make sure nutrition programs all over the city continued to have the

resources to meet the needs of the seniors and make sure there is food to eat. >> (spanish) >> she is an example of when we take care of our elderly; she just celebrated 30 years of volunteer service at 30th street. (applause) >> moderator: civic engagement at its best. next we have the next five speakers. the 30th street group, -- resenting the arts, xochitl cortez, representing casa casada.

fernando gomez benitez, representing health. >> (spanish) >> good morning my name is jose dominguez, i am 70 years old, i attend the 30th street senior center and i am a volunteer. >> we want to include our brothers and sisters at the senior center cap street. >> (spanish) >> the be top program has allowed me to learn how to use the computer. >> the following way.

>> (spanish) >> having access to the internet and learning how to use it has helped me to discover the world that i had no knowledge of as a cuban. >> (spanish) >> also held my to learn and expand the perfect my english. which i also study at city college. >> ( spanish) >> be top has also help me and do different kinds of activities and learn how to do different exercises on the computer.

>> (spanish) >> an example would be studies on, which really helped me to learn the homework and do my homework. >> (spanish) >> this particular program, he learned to do excel, and helps the center dual kinds of things including analyze consumer satisfaction surveys which he is very proud of. >> (spanish) >> in addition to other things that i have learned there. >> (spanish)

>> this is also another part of what we as seniors get from senior centers. >> i would like to say, i want you to consider helping be top program continue. thank you very much for your attention. apl (applause)>> moderator: perfect timing. next -- (indiscernible) >> good morning everyone, my name is -- patel, i have been a resident of san francisco for over 30 years. i the fact the mayor and the board of supervisors for having discount program and i'm here to ask for an increase to the level of funding for the san francisco budget for arts programs; the funding programs have not increased since 1996 and 1995.

to get to these year's level it would ask an increase of four hundred thousand dollars. you had to use these resources of 95-96 the balance this year's budget i'm sure the mayor and supervisors would have a hard time doing so. those are artists, individual artists that have no structural support. -- program is it nationally renowned program, people in the community award this programs. we are asking for -- this not mean that's what the valley of those programs are.

if you want to keep families here, and the need place to go to on muny any programs where they can get measured and they need to have activities that express their wonderful neighborhoods. thank you. apl (applause)>> moderator: next xochitl cortez. >> hello. i want to thank you all for having us here today. i want to get a quick introduction of why we are here. casa casada is facing a 25 percent budget cut from the dept. of pub. health. is owned by -- and developed in partnership with bernal heights neighborhood center. as a service provider, we offer cultural and linguistic appropriate case management, psychotherapy, , community building housing, nutrition

services, to mostly latino immigrants who were homeless for a period of time before coming to casa casada. many of the residents are day laborers who struggle for living on the constant basis. 78% of casa residents earn less than 5000 a year. we want you to understand that 80 percent of our residents don't qualify for medi-cal; in fact they don't qualify for general assistance or social security benefits. the services we provide a very crucial. we are very appreciative of the mayor who is present here today because we know that you have a long history of supporting immigrants in the city including the day laborers housed at casa casada. we ask you to please restore the budget cut it for a goes to the board of supervisors.

as we save lots of money from emergency services otherwise if we don't have the services. i want to introduce gonzalo who wanted to give a little bit more but maybe at the end we will have more time for public comment. (applause) >> alcalde lee -- (spanish) >> mayor lee, supervisors, please restore 25 percent to

casa casada. we are immigrants and i'm not able to access other services but we are forming cooperatives and pay taxes and contribute to the community. >> (spanish) >> so please supervisor campos help our community, we are jornaleros, we have health issues that we face including diabetes and other challenges.

we need to be able to work so we can pay taxes and the contributing members to this community but we are jornaleros and we need your attention. (applause) >> moderator: next we have -- fernando gomez benitez, speaking about medical cuts. >> good morning mayor lee; good morning supervisor campos, supervisor winner. my name is fernando gomez benitez, deputy director of neighborhood health center; i am with the patient of ours maximina lozano, and i do talk about potential cuts to the article access program. we are excited about healthcare reform.

we are in the middle of transforming our medical clinic into a top-of-the-line services. however, we know that not everyone will be illegible for medi-cal. 75% of the adult population would not qualify because many of them are undocumented. this would mean 770 article visits would be cut, 261 adult patients with not have access to care. maximina wants to say one thing. >> (spanish)

how are you today? apl (applause)>> moderator: maximina is 75 years old and comes to the clinic to get medical care because she has no access otherwise that is where she gets her medicine. that is worshiper dissipates in different activities occluding having literacy in native spanish language and also english literacy as you can see. she does arts and crafts and things that keep her healthy. please support her program. apl (applause)>> moderator: now we will go through -- perdon.

the youth are here. there is a large group, will ask you to keep it short and i will tap your shoulder to let you know your time is up. >> thank you larissa. we are thrilled to be here. my name is bonnie -- i represent -- and the living library for over a decade, we have been creating -- take by the student stewards. we work with over 1000 children and youth each month in six schools, in three neighborhoods, excelsior, bernal heights, chinatown at commodore stockton -- and gordon lau elementary -- and

san miguel child development center. we have been founded since 2002 by dcyf; this year were recommended as not funded. this is a very significant program. i would like this junk student from seventh grade to say a few words. >> good morning everyone my name is karen, i am in seventh grade. i started going to the -- program after school. i met a lot of new friends, it's been really fun. when the garden started, it was dusty and dry.

now it's like a beautiful garden with all these flowers, it would be really sad to see it go away. thank you. apl (applause)>> jay mancino, the principle -- child development center. >> jane mancina site administrator, school administrator early education. they have been with us for 10 years, 0 percent in the budget. dcyf is cutting funds; this would be devastating. if you had zero in your pocket to nourish yourself you could not survive. if we give zero dollars to living library, that funding will devastate education; the mayor said successful

citizens is a priority and success for my children is extremely important. thank you for restoring. please restore it. >> moderator: thank you for practicing your civic rights. next i'm going to call the names. joann chung the san francisco community empowerment center; ruth wallace representating the commercial corridor in san bruno avenue. -- speaking about home care. and then we have nathan from the bike coalition; and mia too much individual. >> good morning everyone. my name is joanne chung, executive director of the san francisco community harmony center.

i want to thank our supervisor david campos for giving us a voice and always representing us the best way possible. mayor lee mentioned in the beginning of this meeting, that we need to see the success of our people and immigrants that make up our community. i'm here to represent the asian immigrants in the portola district. many asian immigrants have to go to chinatown to receive services, but they need services in our own neighborhood. sscc with little to no funding has done a lot with what we have, low income, senior housing, social security benefits, job-training, esl, computer classes. what we need to see is more

funding for these programs from the city because we need to have a voice as well. i'm glad that we have a lot of latino immigrants here represented but we also need asian representation as well. thank you so much for coming. (applause) >> my name is ellen, one of the volunteers that joann mentioned. the reason we are able -- inds (indiscernible)more than 100 people volunteer for the community; more than 100 people are bilingual. joann is not exactly bilingual, but she's able to share the program but we need the funds, so far we have no funds. i am working as a public health psychiatric social worker. -- is my boss. i'm living at -- and i am a resident and a mom and also a daughter.

i see a lot of immigration needs. we have 35 percent asian people but we don't have enough staff, we don't have enough volunteers who are able to volunteer and we are the only agency that operates at night, evenings and weekends because the majority of us are working full-time jobs and common volunteer on weekends and saturday and sunday. i am a lee too. my cousin lee, increase the level of funding for public safety for us. >> moderator: thank you everyone for cooperating with moving our comments along. next is ruth -- >> i am bruce wallace from the portola neighborhood association.

what i'm suggesting today will save the city money to help pay for all of these worthwhile programs. on our commercial corridor, just by asking the city to enforce the code so we can have more safety on our streets. just opening up the merchants windows, taking down all the stuff on the windows would make them less likely to become victims as well as people on the street. by asking for more muny sevices, 8, 9, 44, 29, 54, would help save lives. in our corridor in the last for years we have had three pedestrian fatalities, people running for buses because they don't want to wait for the next one, they're willing to risk their lives to catch a bus. by adding more buses we could save people; we could save money, and would could help

fund these are the programs that need so much help throughout the city. thank you san francisco community. apl (applause)>> moderator: -- from home care. >> mayor lee, supervisors, department heads, brothers and sisters from the committee. my name is bradley whitmire, this is my coworker maria perez. we thank the city for its long-term support for home care; we heard about outcomes for the aids/hiv community may be one of the reasons that san francisco does so well is that california is that we have home care program. we need a raise basically, but we have good news,

it's already paid for. money from the federal government has set a new base that's come to the state at this level. we ask for the difference to be put back into the home care program, to keep it strong so that we can serve our clients. we need to do this because we have been facing a 3.6 statewide cut for numerous years; there are potentially other cuts; it always seemed there are cuts around the corner. to keep clients at home, save money, home care is the best stimulus, we spent our money but in districts eight and nine, we are not taking it very far. >> the amount that came into the city was 4.3 million

dollars. i want to make that point. >> moderator: nathan from the bike club coalition. okay. move on to our final comment, mia too much. (applause) >> howdy. my name is mia too much i am the youth commissioner; i work at lyric but i am representing myself. i have two important issues i want to bring up, lgbt -- we still don't have an lgbt (indiscernible) i would really like to see that

coming to fruition. i would like the 400-unit goal to be met and exceeded, to have no homeless gay youths. we have 5000 homeless youth. if we are setting goals here, we need to meet that. i'm shaking, life or death thing. i live in the mission. i survived a hate crime. i want to have affordable housing. i live in the mission. if i could live in supervisor farrell's district i would love to. but the mission is my home.